


House Hunters: Regency Edition

by isabellahazard (cafemusain)



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6886666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafemusain/pseuds/isabellahazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colonel and Mrs Fitzgerald, recently returned from the war in France, are to let a house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House Hunters: Regency Edition

“I swear on the soul of my mother, Robbie, if we don’t like this one--” “Your mother isn’t dead, dearest.” “My mother’s health is irrelevant.” “You just said--” “Judas God! What I mean to say is, if we don’t like this house, I’m simply going to have to have my lying-in in Cornwall.” “Well, there’s Rotherham house--”

Bee Fitzgerald eyed her husband dubiously from across the carriage. “Beside the fact that I have no wish to impose the immensely difficult, noisy, and inconvenient event of labour upon your parents, there is the very real possibility that Viola will take it into her head to visit, and then I shall never be able to look at her again.”

“Vi would hardly come in while you were…” Out of some sense of gentility, or perhaps it was simple male embarrassment, he struggled for the words, which made Bee snort.

“Knees up ‘round my ears? Panting and lowing like a prize heifer? _Crowning_?”

The inelegant phrasing (and accompanying broadening of her accent) prompted a significant glance from his side, at which she only smirked. “Besides which, she’s had a child,” he reminded her.

Now it was Bee’s turn to raise her eyebrows significantly. “I am of the firm belief that she woke up one morning, ate her breakfast, and simply told the child her lease was up. Marching orders given, your newest niece was born with no fuss at all. I, on the other hand, will be enormous and red and tired and sweating, and have no wish for any body in the room who is not immediately related to me, or a midwife. I could never face Viola again if I were to do something so inelegant asbellow within her hearing.” There it was--the brotherly snicker, and all was once again smiles between them. In truth Bee had every respect (and even affection) for her sister-in-law, but her elegant manner made her an easy target for such little jests at her expense; that Robbie knew this was what allowed Bee the freedom to make them.

They carried on in silence for a while, Robbie absentmindedly flicking through a book on his lap, Bee looking out the window as they jostled along the early-winter roads. “Ouf,” she exclaimed quite suddenly, lifting her feet to rest on the opposite seat and rubbing her abdomen. “Young Fortinbras is awake.”

“I thought we had settled on Henry, for a boy?”

“Tamora, then. Doesn’t like the traveling, I think.” Robbie obligingly began removing Bee’s half-boots, and she smiled beatifically. “You may name the monster anything you like if you rub them,” she said brightly, wiggling her stockinged toes. With a very dramatic groan he obliged, lifting her feet to his lap as she budged sideways to accommodate him. This occupied them both until he declared they were nearing their destination, at which point he laced her shoes for her--she being quite unable in her delicate, or more accurately cumbersome, condition. This earned him a kiss on the cheek as he lighted from the carriage to help her down.

The quiet delight of having her feet rubbed had meant she had kept her eyes closed as they pulled up the drive to the Abbey, rendering it as much a surprise as if he had covered her eyes with his hands--a mark of enthusiasm in which he had not indulged since they had rejected the first house the agent had shown them (on grounds of discovering that, despite its prepossessing edifice, the house was quite prone to the damp, and too large to effectively manage within budget besides).

The current house suffered from no such impressive first vista and was not, by Bee’s reckoning, worth the tension of a dramatic reveal. It was not by any means ugly, but it was not an Abbey in the style of some intimidating great houses she had seen. “Well that seems awfully new,” she said of the entryway, which did not look at all Medieval.

“Sometime in the last century, I believe,” said the agent, who had come separately, and was now descending from his own carriage. “Colonel and Mrs Fitzgerald, I presume--most gratified to make your acquaintance.” He was a pleasant fellow by the name of Lapley, and hopefully more capable than the last man, who had led them quite the merry dance in hopes of commission. Greetings and pleasantries were exchanged, the key produced, and they were led up the stairs and into the front hall.

“Odd little place--most of the living quarters are upstairs, and you shall soon see why--”

Little was, perhaps, relative. That such a house (indeed, any of the houses they had yet seen) was not out of the ordinary for Robbie reminded her that he had been born the son of an Earl, and she the daughter of a quite ordinary, if (mostly) respectable, sea-captain. It was rarely a distinction that gave her pause, but the concept that her child might grow up in such a place--she was not entirely sure how she felt, just yet. London had still felt like some sort of extended fairy-tale, and life on campaign had been entirely understandable to her. This was the construction of their future life, together, and she had been imagining something not dissimilar to her own upbringing: genteel, space enough for children and money enough for a few servants, but nothing like the grandeur that seemed to come second nature to this family she had stumbled into.

The entrance, at least, did not seem out of the ordinary. A stone hall with ceilings of unremarkable height, though the room itself served no purpose other than an entry, and she was certain she had seen a tower outside. A tower! They were brought upstairs first, through a winding set of hallways with vaulted ceilings and flagstone floors.

“I confess, my love, I did not think you would like to live at Elsinore,” Bee said merrily, tugging on her husband’s arm, and he smiled. Her own childhood home had been haphazardly enlarged down the ages, and something about the odd turns and smell of old stone made her feel quite comfortable, indeed. The living-quarters were not nearly so grand and intimidating as she had feared, and even the enormous great hall at the far end had a funny sort of charm, with its odd combination of architectural styles.

“Good for entertaining, if we could find space for them to stay,” Robbie observed.

“The village is not so very far away--there is an inn, and we must meet our neighbors besides.”

That they were speaking as if they had already made the arrangements and rented the place did not escape her. Nowhere had they felt so immediately at ease, and Bee could quite easily see children growing up here, scampering about the twists and turns and climbing the tower, which as it turned out, had been added later, and was quite comfortable in size.

“Now, you will have noticed the square layout,” Mr Lapley said, as he led them back down the stairs. “The nunnery was established by a countess, built in quite the best style of the times, and the previous owner had ensured this part was preserved.” He then led them into the most magnificent old cloister Bee had ever seen, windows beautifully carved, an outdoor walk surrounding a sadly-neglected garden.

The effect was nearly magical. “I apologize--we might have made our way more easily, but the reveal is too delicious,” Mr Lapley added merrily, in response to their stunned silence. “You may join me at any time, in the hall,” he said, and left them.

She could tell Robbie was dumbstruck, a grin stealing across his face. He disentangled from her arm and wandered a little further, turning back from his inspection of the vaulting to say, “ _Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again_!”

“Is that Macbeth? This does not feel very Scottish." 

“Hamlet! Mercy, Bee, you just mentioned Elsinore--” The look on her face alerted him that she had mixed them up specifically to vex him, and he returned to her side looking distinctly unimpressed. This did not last long. “I rather like it,” he confessed in half a breath, plucking up her hands and looking entirely delighted with the place.

“Yes, I suspected as much,” she said pleasantly, and then grinned in similar conspiracy. “As do I--there is something quite friendly about it, I think.”

“Rather like a home.”

“Ouf! Gertrude agrees.”

“I begin to regret allowing you the choice of name, if she is a girl.”

“You talk as if you have any _real_ say. We will hope for a boy.” He kissed her despite the impudence of her tongue and the inconvenience of the impending child, and began to talk merrily of the stables, which were large. “I ought never to have married a cavalryman,” she announced as they linked arms to proceed towards the great hall. “I am sure Almond would be well-settled under a tree in an obliging field, and here you talk of air and light and withers. Ouf!”

“Prince Hal agrees his pony should have ample room! It is two to one.”

She paused to look over at him. “It is decided, then? We are to let a house?”

He blinked, as if shocked himself, and then grinned. “We are to let a house.”

**Author's Note:**

> The house is based off Lacock Abbey! However, we've relocated it to Norfolk.


End file.
